Saturday, May 01, 2010

TS:We weren't even going to post about this dish at all, as it was something JS threw together very quickly to feed the household. However, we made this twice in two weeks, so perhaps there's something to this dish after all.

It seems that we are skewing very home-style for our recent Weekend Wokking entries.

JS:There's a pattern going on with our household meals, a pattern I find a bit weird myself. If a dish goes over well in our household, I tend to repeat it within the next two weeks. Maybe I'm subconsciously checking if the first time was a fluke or not? After repeating the dish, it then falls into the black hole of my memory, who knows when to be resurrected again.

I wanted to get some fish onto our table last week, seeing we had gone fish-less at home for a couple of weeks now. The lucky fish of the week is sole, conveniently already in fillets. I didn't want to muck around with flour and butter and do some sort of batch-cookery, so sole meunière was out of the question.

JS:Besides, given my usual hurry and impatience to get dinner done, a delicate fish like sole will usually be manhandled to pieces.

So, I thought, why not just steam the fillets the Chinese way, with some ginger, scallions, Shaoxing wine, and black beans? It's easy and the sole fillets gets to the table unscathed.

Black Beans

TS:These are actually soy beans that have been dried/fermented/salted. These are the beans that are used to make black bean sauce (usually available prepared in jars), like in Stir-fried Pork with Black Bean Sauce, or in Clams in Black Bean Sauce.

TS:The first time JS made the dish, we had soft tofu on hand. We layered the soft tofu and the sole fillets. When the dish finished cooking, the tofu and fish have become one: each piece consisted layers of fish and tofu.

sole with firm Northern-style tofu

TS:The second time, we used Northern-style tofu (as seen here). In this case, JS simply added the tofu cubes into the dish without the fancy layering.

For this dish, I'm thinking most any kind of tofu would work -- and there are a lot of different kinds available.

I'm totally intrigued by the preserved black beans, because I've always wanted to try them. I've seen them in bags (like yours) where they looked rather dry, or also in jars where they looked a bit saucier but weren't sold as black bean sauce. What is the texture like? Is it firm and dry, like a salted caper, or soft and squishy? So curious!

pigpigscorner:Now, talking about steamed fish, it reminds me that I haven't had Cantonese steamed fish in a while. Mmmm.

tasteofbeirut:The black beans give off a predominantly salty taste. As for the tofu, this was the first time we've seen this "Northern-style" tofu being sold. Usually we just choose the firmness (soft, firm, extra-firm).

Choosy Beggar Tina:Oh, I don't know if I've seen them "wetter" but not a "sauce." Oh wait, I think I have, usually in cans.

Anyway, they can be used as the main flavor of a dish (like in this case), or in some Chinese dishes, as "seasoning". (That is, perhaps only a teaspoon or tablespoon used for an entire dish.)

They're mostly salty. As for the texture, I hadn't thought about this, actually, because once used in a dish, I tend not to regard them as individual entities within that dish. They more or less "give themselves" to the dish. But, definitely soft. I tend not to even notice them when shoving spoonfuls of whatever-dish into my mouth.

tigerfish:Yeah, the "blandless" of the tofu really worked well with the black beans! Steamed rice is a must, of course. =)